I don't know that I'm confusing anything. everything2.com doesn't have threaded discussions, but the idea of node/counter-node is fairly prevalent. If there's a factual problem with an existing node you have to petition the node owner to fix it or post a sort of "followup" node. Perhaps there's a way to have the Engine allow community editing of some or all nodes-- as on a Wiki?

I think I misunderstood you about halfway. The node/counter-node idea on E2 is as much a feature of the community as it is technical. It's pretty simple to have community node editing; there's a Wiki nodeball that we even use here on Perl Monks.

The engine itself just provides database persistence, a behavior system, users, permissions, display customization, linking semantics, and an API. Anything else is up to the users. :)